Thursday, 31 July 2014

"When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything."Maggie Smith

"I don't think films about elderly people have been made very much."Maggie Smith

"It seems to me there is a change in what audiences want to see. I can only hope that's correct, because there's an awful lot of people of my age around now and we outnumber the others."Maggie Smith

"I've been playing old parts forever. I play 93 quite often. When you've done it more than once, you take the hint. I think it's a great burden if you're one of those fantastic stars who've always been beautiful; then I think it's hard."Maggie Smith

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

The International Day of Friendship is "based on the recognition of the relevance and importance of friendship as a noble and valuable sentiment in the lives of human beings around the world."

The Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace adopted in 1999 set 8 areas of action for nations, organizations and individuals to undertake in order for a culture of peace to prevail:
- foster a culture of peace through education;
- promote sustainable economic and social development;
- promote respect for all human rights;
- ensure equality between women and men;
- foster democratic participation;
- advance understanding, tolerance and solidarity;
- support participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge;
- promote international peace and security (literally via)

Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks have been friends for more than sixty years. In 1950, a TV show brought them together (via). For some years, they eat together and watch TV together in Carl Reiner's living room every night (via).

Monday, 28 July 2014

"Have you ever seen anything more offputting, uglier, meaner than a wench on a bike, wheezing, her face red like a turkey, her eyes reddened by the dust? I haven't ... Respectfully expressed: What a horror! Is there any element of beauty to such a furious dame on wheels? Cycling makes our women haggard and angular, unwomanly from the out- and the inside. Off your bikes, female sex! Or you will no longer enjoy the right to call your sex the fair one!"unknown journalist (1897)"Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world." Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

"To men, the bicycle in the beginning was merely a new toy, another machine added to the long list of devices they knew in their work and play. To women, it was a steed upon which they rode into a new world." Munsey's Magazine (1896)

This very "toy" represented freedom and became a symbol of feminism, of the fight against restrictions in everyday life ranging from a lack of mobility to the Victorian dress (via). The women's movement of the 1890s and the cycling craze were "inextricably intertwined" (via).

As cycling’s popularity exploded, a new breed of woman was making her mark in the 1890s. “The New Woman” was the term used to describe the modern woman who broke with convention by working outside the home, or eschewed the traditional role of wife and mother, or became politically active in the woman’s suffrage movement or other social issues. The New Woman saw herself as the equal of men and the bicycle helped her assert herself as such. (literally via)

The weak, fragile and delicate woman of the mid 1800s and early 1900s wore steel corsets (leading to faintings, broken ribs, problems with organs etc.) and long, multi-layered skirts which restricted mobility. The bicycle changed female dress ... and mobility. Dress reforms, such as bloomers, had been suggested before but used to be opposed and ridiculed (Postolowski, n.y.). Women cyclists were early activists to challenge "fashion's dictates" (via) and to promote what they considered as "rational dress" and what conservative men called "immoral dress" (via). The battle over the dress was a crucial part of the battle for equality. In 1895, the US-American suffragette Susan B. Anthony asked a reporter: "Why, pray tell me, hasn't a woman as much right to dress to suit herself as a man?" (via).

Doctors warned that bicycling would lead to serious medical conditions such as, for instance, the "bicycle face" that was characterised by "a hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes", a pale face "often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginning of dark shadows under the eyes, and always an expression of weariness". It goes without saying that women were particularly susceptible to this "medical condition" (via).

"She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life."Susan B. Anthony

In 1894, Annie "Londonderry" Cohen Kopchovsky (1870-1947) temporarily left her husband, three children and a job behind and started her journey around the world by bicycle in 15 months. "She started her ride on a 42 pound Columbia women's bicycle and wearing a long skirt. By the time she reached Chicago, however, she traded them in for a 21 pound Sterling men's bicycle and bloomers." (via) "I am a journalist and a new woman, if that term means that I believe I can do anyhing that any man can do." (via)

Thursday, 24 July 2014

"One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren't routine, often don't get a fair break... It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs, which produced the corollary that women are bred to timidity."Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart, "Queen of the Air", born on 24 July 1897, was the first female aviatrix to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928, the first woman to fly an autogyro, the first woman to fly nonstop coast-to-coast across the U.S., the first person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico, from Hawai to California, from ... Amelia Earhart was a pioneer who set a great many records (via).

"Women must pay for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats, but, they also get more notoriety when they crash."Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was an advocate for female pilots. She was the first president of The Ninety-Nines, the International Organization of Women Pilots (99s) which was founded for the mutual support and advancement of women pilots, an official of the National Aeronautic Association where she promoted the introduction of separate women's record, and a visiting faculty member of Purdue University where she councelled women on careers. When the aeronautical Bendix Trophy Race banned women in 1934, she refused to fly the actress, co-founder of the United Artists studio and at the time "most famous woman in the world" Mary Pickford (1892-1979) to open the races. Her ideals on marriage were rather liberal; she believed in equal responsibilities for both partners and kept her own name (via and via).

Amelia Earhart encouraged women to become passengers or pilots, told mothers not to say "no" to their daughters: "My point is that aviation is being sold to boys much more effectively than it is to girls." One of her goals was to make female fliers, women like herself, more the norm: "I am lonesome for the companionship of women in aviation. . . . When I want to 'talk shop' in aviation at home there are only men to talk to. Bill, Slim and some other flying men I have met are wonderful, but once in a while one likes to talk about a common interest with a woman." (via).

(...) when she attempts to address "what this flight means," she begins with the observation that the mayor who greets her in Southhampton, the first woman sheriff in England, is addressed as "Mister Mayor," pointing to the modern woman as oxymoron. She then considers the flight's meaning for aviation, for women, and for herself, always the order in which she will consider the importance of any aeronautical achievement. (literally via)

Amelia Earhart was aware of the impact of gender on the public perception of aviation. She pointed out that if a woman did something ordinary such as becoming a passenger, it was safe and everybody could do it. If a woman did something extraordinary, such as flying the Atlantic, it would become news. And if a woman failed to do it and, for instance, crashed, her gender would make it bigger news and women in general might be prevented from flying. With her short hair, her trousers ("It is possible that the advance of trousers for women is the most significant fashion change of the twentieth century."), her advocating for women's rights to endanger their lives and not just improve the lives of others, she showed traits that are traditionally associated with the figure of the dandy (via). Amelia Earhart became a feminist icon.

"Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."Amelia Earhart

The plan to circumnavigate the globe by flight did not work out. Amelia Earhart disappeared on 2 July 1937 together with her navigator Frederick Noonan and her customised Lockheed Electra (via) during their flight from Lae in New Guinea to the small atoll of Howland Isand in the Pacific. One of the largest naval air search operations followed (Beheim, 2004) to find "America's favorite missing person" (Hancock, 2009). A great many search operations followed.

"...now, and then, women should do for themselves what men have already done—occasionally what men have not done—thereby establishing themselves as persons, and perhaps encouraging other women toward greater independence of thought and action. Some such consideration was a contributing reason for my wanting to do what I so much wanted to do."Amelia Earhart

"The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune."

"I have known girls who should be tinkering with mechanical things instead of making dresses, and boys who would be better at cooking than engineering."Amelia Earhart

"Being men and being engaged in a highly essential phase of the serious business of air transportation, they [airline mechanics] all naturally had preconceived notions about a woman pilot bent on a 'stunt' flight—not very favorable notions, either. It was, undoubtedly, something of a shock to discover that the 'gal,' with whom they had to deal, not only was an exceptionally pleasant human being who 'knew her stuff,' but that she knew exactly what she wanted done and had sense enough to let them alone while they did it. There was an almost audible clatter of chips falling off skeptical masculine shoulders."C.B. Allen, New York Herald Tribune

Monday, 21 July 2014

Lifelong learning, the "continuous building of skills and knowledge throughout the life of an individual" plays a crucial role for personal development, social inclusion, well-being, active citizenship, competitiveness, and employability. It stimulates and empowers people to acquire the knowledge that is required through lifetime (Laal & Salamati, 2012).
Europe aims to promote lifelong learning as a) that way workers are more flexible and more likely to be employed and b) education is a right, a right of personal enrichment and development (Romijn, 2002). In addition, education is "a vital instrument for the persistence of racial discrimination, social stratification, differences between men and women, but mainly, for the non-acceptance of 'the other one', for exclusion." (Milan, 2002)

Friday, 18 July 2014

Heidi Hetzer was born in Berlin in 1937. Her father dealt with Opel cars, she became an auto mechanic and later a racing-car driver.

Heidi Hetzer took part in the Rallye Paris with an Opel oldtimer built in 1911, the Panama Alaska Rallye with a 1969 Opel Kadett B, the Rallye Düsseldorf-Shanghai with a 1964 Opel Rekord A Coupe, the Carrera Panamericana, ... and in many more rallyes (via) - all together there were more than 200 rallyes and 150 prizes (Baumann, 2014).

Inspired by Cläronore Stinnes (1901-1990) who travelled around the world by car from 1927 to 1929, this month, on 27 July, 77-year-old Heidi Hetzer will start a journey around the world with her 83-year-old oldtimer Hudson (which she tenderly calls "Hudo"). A 65-years-old gentleman was supposed to accompany her but changed his mind. The "vacant position" was advertised, among the candidates a 24-year-old man who speaks five languages and is currently getting his driver's licence was chosen. His late driver's licence is no problem for Heidi: "I can drive myself."

Heidi Hetzer is planning to travel through 58 countries (including e.g. Russia, Iran, Japan and Australia) in the next two years and never to travel more than 300 km a day since she wants to have enough time to get to know the culture and the people she visits (Baumann, 2014). When her plans were published on the internet, she received comments such as "old bag" with an "old car". At first, she was "completely devastated" but then replied that she wanted to be a model for elder people who she wanted to encourage to be active and leave the couch (via). Her fans will be kept up to date through her weblog (Baumann, 2014) and her family via Skype. Why this journey? "Once in my life I wanted to do something for myself." (via). 95.000 km to go. Bon voyage, Heidi!

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

In the 1960s, dance language shifted from the need for the "classical dancerly body" to an expansion of boundaries. The idea that anyone could be a dancer made dance open to a more diverse population. Mixed-abilities dance companies were founded which included people with disabilities (Herman, 2009).

On 17 July, ImPulsTanz, the Vienna International Dance Festival will start, an annual contemporary dance festival that has been taking place in Vienna since 1984. The festival hosts the DanceAbility-Day and offers a month-long DanceAbility Teacher Certification Workshop. DanceAbility was co-founded by Alito Alessi, a "pioneering teacher and choreographer in the fields of contact improvisation, and dance and disability" (via).

"Contact improvisation offers a form of improvisation to everyone, their abilities tailored to their dancing duet by the choices they make. With danceability, Alito Alessi put this idea to work with people with disabilities – any disabilities – and discovered that it works, and it erases the assumed distinction between able/disabled. Looking around, I see that this distinction is used almost everywhere: in language, in education, in government. It is the common assumption, and so becomes the common attitude, the common thing for children to learn, to grow up holding, and eventually, to design and legislate with, as they mature. It is like a toxic cloud hovering around the fact of disability. Toxic? How would assignment into a separate and somehow inferior social status affect you? Cloud? Always in the shadow, in society’s estimation. Danceability has the power to lift this cloud. Using the art of dance, the art of the body, it begins with the facts of the body – the facts of anybody/mind – and slowly, gently, shows the partners in a dance how to find common ground. An event occurs which can only occur with the participation of these two people, an invention which assumes the opposite of what is normally assumed, and which is a path to healing the divisions we find everywhere installed – the normal ‚default’ setting – in our environments, in our minds, in our hearts. Danceability is a kind of healing, not to ’heal’ the disabled, but to heal the able and disabled at once, in one forum. For a time, the separation is dissolved. For our minds, the separation can no longer have unquestioned power over our thinking. For our hearts, a connection is forged between creative partners. Try it. You will be moved."Steve Paxton

Monday, 14 July 2014

"Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is defined as positive feelings toward one's own group, nationalism as negative feelings toward other groups. In the 1980s, Feshbach et al. wondered if positive feelings toward one's own group automatically led to negative feelings toward others or if the two constructs differed in quality. A factor analysis revealed two relatively independent factors which the authors labelled patriotism and nationalism: Patriotism focused on feelings about one's own country (e.g. "I love my country.", "I am proud to be American."), nationalism on the feelings of and a need for national superiority (e.g. "In view of America's moral and material superiority, it is only right that we should have the biggest say in deciding UN policy.", "Other countries should try to make their governments as much like ours as possible."). Their findings also suggest that nationalism is associated more strongly with a competitive (and militaristic) approach to the world while patriotism shows a more cooperative (and peaceful) approach. The results show parallels to Adorno et al.'s differentiation between the "healthy patriotic love of one's own country" that is not associated with prejudice against others and "ethnocentric patriotism" which is associated with prejudice and resembles Feshbach's nationalism (Druckman, 1994).

Duckitt points out that ethnocentric patriotism is associated with insecure group identification, i.e., the more insecure individuals feel in the groups they belong to, the more unhealthy their relationship to others and the stronger their need to distance their groups from others. This notion challenges the assumption that ingroup and outgroup attitudes are completely independent and not related to each other. Other authors define nationalism as a more complex form of patriotism (Druckman, 1994). While former studies used to see nationalism as a continuum of intensiveness, younger studies rather distinguish on the basis of quality, i.e., aim to identify different types of nationalism. Staub differs between blind and constructive patriotism, Westle between traditional nationalism, democratic patriotism and postnationalism, Knudsen between national chauvinism and system legitimacy, Hjerm between ethnic, civic and pluralist national identities, Blank & Schmidt distinguish ethnic nationalism from democratic patriotism - just to mention a few concepts (Blank et al, 2001).

Nationalism is xenophobic. It concentrates on minorities and immigrants and in a certain way is a latent mechanism of boundary maintenance. It is characterised by blind support for the nation and correlates positively with the derogation of "others". Cohrs argues that patriotism per se is neither good nor bad and that its consequences depend on the values and norms. There is still the question whether it is really possible to have positive patriotic feelings withouth having nationalistic sentiments. Scholars are still working on a theoretical and empirical distinction between the two constructs nationalism and patriotism (Latcheva, 2010).

"There is no way like the American Way": People in Louisville, Kentucky, queuing for food and clothing in front of a relief station during the Great Ohio River Flood in 1937

Thursday, 10 July 2014

"Race, what is that? Race is a competition, somebody winning and somebody losing. Blood doesn't run in races! Come on!"Beah Richards

“There are a lot of movies out there that I would hate to be paid to do: some real demeaning, real woman-denigrating stuff. It is up to women to change their roles. They are going to have to write the stuff and do it. And they will.”Beah Richards

Beulah Elizabeth Richardson (1920-2000) was an actress, poet, playwright, author and activist. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Sidney Poitier's mother in Stanley Kramer's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" in 1967 (via).
Richards was born in Mississippi and graduated in New Orleans. To her, education meant freedom and distance from the life in which she suffered racism "every day of my life". Although she started her career at a time in which black actors and actresses were cast in a "marginally less stereotypical" manner she usually got roles of maids and older women. Born in the 1920s, she played a grandmother in the 1950s. She played Sidney Poitier's mother although they were two to seven years apart (some obituaries listed 1926 as the year of her birth, according to other sources she was born in 1920). She also mothered Danny Glover, James Earl Jones and Eriq La Salle (via).

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

George Hosato Takei, known as Hikaru Sulu from the Star Trek series, caused a media sensation in 2005 when he publicly revealed that he had been in a relationship with a man for 18 years (via). In 2008, Takei married his longtime partner Brad Altman in a multicultural ceremony: "We have a relationship that's been stronger and longer-lived than some of our straight friends, and yet we were not equal." "What this does is give us that dignity; (it's) being part of the American system and being whole. We're making the American system whole as well, as America is becoming more equal."
At the wedding, "Nyota Uhura" Nichelle Nichols and "Pavel Chekov" Walter Koenig served as best lady and best man. (via).

Takei was 68 years old at the time of his disclosure. He says that coming out is a "very difficult and personal thing" and a "long, long process" for a public figure and that he had been out to the other actors and actresses on the set of "Star Trek" in the 1960s (via). His public disclosure was a reaction to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's not signing the same sex marriage bill. Takei said that he was angry but "couldn't speak out without coming out. My voice had to be authentic." So he talked to a magazine (via).
In the 1940s, the Japanese-American family Takei was sent for internment and could only return to Los Angeles after World War II (via). Takei compares prejudice against gays with ethnic segregation: "It's against basic decency and what American values stand for." (via).
He is an activist for human rights for LGBT (via) and was celebrity grand marshal of the Seattle pride parade on 29th June 2014 - so far the largest parade in Seattle Pride history (via).

Sunday, 6 July 2014

One year, 155 postings, 753 subscribers and a great many beautiful comments. Thank you for your interest, your thoughts, your sense of humour, your comments. And many thanks to all anonymous subscribers for following.

Wednesday, 2 July 2014

"My life is my music. They would beat me on the mouth if I marched, and without my mouth I wouldn't be able to blow my horn ... they would beat Jesus if he was black and marched."Louis Armstrong (via)

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was often accused of being an Uncle Tom by the jazz community, of buying in to the ethnic stereotypes, of not being active in the civil rights movement (via), of not marching against segregation. Armstrong, however, had already been the target of bombing and did not wish to become one again. The public image of him was one that showed a trumpet player who was "not very serious about art or politics, or even life". Armstrong did have political views. But they were hardly heard publicly and scattered about in uncollected letters, unpublished manuscripts and tape recordings (via).

Armstrong boycotted his home town New Orleans after it had banned integrated bands in 1956 (a law that was undone by the Civil Rights Act in 1964) (via). In 1957, Armstrong spoke out when nine black students were not allowed to attend Little Rock Central High School and cancelled a tour. Eisenhower forced the school to integrate, Armstrong sent him a telegramme: "Daddy. You have a good heart." (via).

His shows were popular among white people - the same people that cultivated segregation. Armstrong did not socialise with "top dogs of society after a dance or concert". He said: "The same society people may go around the corner and lynch a Negro." (via). In 1931, Armstrong was arrested by the Memphis Police Department and sent to prison for sitting next to his manager's wife - white wife - on the bus (via). He was always under white management since many record companies were owned by white businessmen who did not negotiate with African American agents (Reiff, 2010).

Armstrong was criticised for his "Unce Tom persona", Dizzy Gillespie called him an outdated embarrassment. However, since racism was rampant when he started his career (Reiff, 2010) he clearly knew what injustice meant and had a clear understanding of the limits of what he could do as an individual (Stricklin, 2010). Armstrong needed to accept the "public transcript of appeasement". He appealed as the "smiling, uncomplaining black man trying to integrate himself". And this "happy-go-lucky, minstrel persona" was not that insincere. Despite all the blatant racist abuse he had experienced throughout his life, he was described as a truly happy person (Reiff, 2010). He was able to resist hate and prefer happiness over controversy (Stricklin, 2010). Armstrong chose his sense of humour and his success (with which he demonstrated to be equal) as means to fight racism. His resistance was subtle, but it was there. He chose a hidden transcript. Later, Dizzy Gillespie changed his interpretation of Armstrong's "Tomming" character:

"If anybody asked me about a certain public image of him, handkerchief over his head, grinning in the face of white racism, I never hesitated to say I didn’t like it. I didn’t want the white man to expect me to allow the same things Louis did. Hell, I had my own way of “Tomming”... Later on, I began to recognize what I had considered Pop’s grinning in the face of racism as his absolute refusal to let anything, even anger about racism, steal the joy from his life and erase his fantastic smile. Coming from a younger generation, I misjudged him." (Reiff, 2010)

- Reiff, M. (2010) Unexpected Activism: A Study of Louis Armstrong and Charles Mingus as Activists Using James Scott's Theory of Public Versus Hidden Transcripts. Summer Research, Paper 55, University of Puget Sound
- Stricklin, D. (2010) Louis Armstrong: The Soundtrack of the American Experience. Library of African-American Biography.
- photos of Louis Armstrong with children at the Tahhseen Al-Sahha Medica Centre in Cairo via, with his wife Lucille Wilson in Egypt (1961) via and via, in Rome via, photo of Armstrong performing with All Stars (1956) via

About Me

This weblog is about diversity and inclusion. It is not about "managing" diversity and "coping mechanisms" at the workplace only but about different aspects of diversity (all dimensions, i.e., age, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability) in art, marketing, music, sports, health, literature, urban planning, language, etc. We encounter diversity and attitudes to it everywhere in society. Limiting discussions and good practices to aspects related to the workplace may be, well, too limiting.

I have been working in the fields of diversity and human resources for many years. I also work as a university lecturer at the Department of Business Education and Development, University of Graz, Austria.

One project we are currently working on is "Graz. The Inclusive City." It is about raising awareness for how to turn a city into an inclusive city and collecting ideas. The weblog is in English (mostly) and German (sometimes, in fact, whenever postings refer to the city of Graz). If you are interested:

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